Coloured Me Grey (Book Two)

Chapter 26

Kind of a long-ish chapter? But if you stick around till the end, I've got a noiiice little surprise for you *wink wink*.

It had been a week since the college reopened for the new semester. The dream had left me shaken. It hadn't been just a dream. It was as if someone had unlocked a memory capsule in my head and made me relive every part of that day. Every part of it had been real. I had checked my palm the first thing in the morning, you could discern the last scars from the palm lines if you looked closely and they were almost fading; they weren't made recently.

"You seem very upbeat," Yash said once our History of Art with Maity Sir was over.

"Ask me why," I beamed with delight.

"Why, Riyaaz?"

"It's you! I've met you after so long! I love it."

He rested a hand on his mouth and giggled. "You've been seeing me for the last week now. Too bad we have just the morning class together. See you in the break, Riyaaz." One of his friends even smiled at me and I didn't have to put in any extra effort to return the gesture – I was already smiling as hard as I could.

The truth was – I was so jittery that I was overdoing my act of staying positive throughout the day. All I wanted to do was go home, put on some sad, gut-wrenching music and maybe call up Ishan and ask him to reassure me that we were on better terms now, and then –

And then what? Stop thinking about Yash already.

I was emotionally exhausted by the time I went to attend my wood-carving classes which were starting today. The studio was empty – I was a solid ten minutes early to her class.

The door to her office was not closed all the way. From the other side, I could hear short peals of laughter over the monotonous hum of the ceiling fan in the studio. The voices seemed to belong to two women. One of them was definitely our professor.

I was just settling down in my regular corner when I heard a small crash inside the office. Something had just fallen and by all probability, broken. No other sound followed that, it was deadly silent.

I heard the other voice say at last, "Ma'am, I'm sorry –"

"We're done for the day," I still remembered the last time I had heard Pramila Ma’am speak that way.

Something had definitely broken.

"I'm so sorry about this. I'll clean it up for you –"

"I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself. Really, thank you for helping me organize the files today," she sounded genuinely grateful, but nonetheless, I wondered if it was less scary for the other girl to be in the teacher's presence right now. "I have a class starting in another few minutes, gotta get this cleaned up before that. I'll see you next week."

"Y-yes, ma'am," the girl hurried out of the office and found me staring right back at her. She had to be a senior, definitely not from our class. The fear in her eyes was as clear as daylight. If she had wanted to say something to me, she changed her mind at the last moment and walked out of the studio.

"Oh, Riyaaz. It's you." My head snapped back to find Pramila Ma'am at the door to her office.

The steeliness in her usually dim, dark eyes sent a shiver up my spine.

"I heard something breaking. Is –"

She glanced back at her office and turned to me. "Well, I could use a hand if you don't mind."

I nodded and shuffled up to my feet.

"It's been a long time, but, remember the penstand you had found on my table?"